300 and a look ahead for 2009

I hadn’t meant to wait this long to get the first post of the year up, but real life has a way of claiming its due time. I noticed when I logged on this evening that my New Year’s post was my 300th, and the site went over 20,000 visits last week as well. Nice to start the year off with a couple of milestones. Thank you to everyone who has visited, and especially those who keep coming back.

Posts will most likely be infrequent (best case) or nonexistent (worst case) until the 23rd. I’ve been recalled from retirement to active duty, and included in this is an all expense-paid trip to South Carolina to be put back into the personnel system, finance system, healthcare system, etc. This was neither involuntary nor unexpected, but preparing for the trip has consumed a good deal of my time of late. So depending on connectivity and the cooperation of my ancient laptop, maybe I’ll manage a few posts in the interim. We also found and successfully bid on a house this week, which although time-consuming has come as a great relief.

As for the year ahead, I’m not one for resolutions, as they tend to wear out long before the year does. Instead I have some goals for the year for the blog, my research and other writing projects. They aren’t listed in any particular order.

1. 100 posts for the year, which may be a challenge with a slow January.2. Finish the 6th Cavalry Fiddler’s Green articles, and add more diversity from the other regiments.3. Finish my portion of the virtual battlefield project started with Craig Swain.4. Have a magazine article accepted for publication.5. Complete transcription and annotation of the manuscript started in 2008.6. Feature the 4th Cavalry in 1863 on the blog to learn more of the western theater.7. More posts explaining facets of cavalry life and tactics.8. Finish the company muster rolls for at least 8 of the 12 companies of the 6th Cavalry.

The blog format will remain the same for now. I’m considering switching to a different service, but am not yet convinced. I haven’t had any problems with this one other than the ability to post separate pages, and have thought of a workaround or two that might work. We’ll see.

Dear Don,Abraham Lincoln is turning 200 in February, and we want you to celebrate his bicentennial with us!We’ve read your site Crossed Sabers and think you’d be interested in hearing about our project because your site is dedicated to US cavalry, specifically Civil War cavalry.My name is Alexis Lerro and I work for a company called Lime Projects based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the last month or so, we have been helping the Rosenbach Museum & Library get ready to launch an exciting new project called “21st-Century Abe” to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Abe Lincoln’s birth.21st-Century Abe grew out of an awareness that there is an intense interest in Lincoln among the great number of web-savvy folks who spend much of their days surfing the net, as the abundance of Lincoln-themed YouTube videos and MySpace pages will attest, but that he is almost exclusively represented and discussed in a mythical and clichéd way. The goal of 21st-Century Abe is to engage this audience in exploring a nuanced and complex view of Lincoln and to create a community of dialogue (both textual and artistic) around contemporary issues that grow out an understanding of Lincoln’s historical materials. The organizing themes of the project include Lincoln’s views on race, his patterns of thought and rhetoric, and his role as a celebrity, both in his own day and ours.In addition to the blog the Rosenbach has started, there will be a full website launch on February 12th, Lincoln’s 200th birthday, and exciting contributions from scholar and author Douglas Wilson, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center and respected Lincoln academic; visual artist Maira Kalman, author and illustrator of numerous children’s books and illustrator of the illustrated version of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style; composer and rock musician Bryce Dessner, (member of the band The National); and multi-media artists Archive (Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick) as they reflect on Lincoln documents and provide their own creative interpretations.But we’re not stopping there! Your responses—in words, songs, videos, photos, drawings, web links, whatever — define 21st-Century Abe. With the full site launch, we invite you to contribute your own Abe finds and interpretations and maybe even win one of our Abe contests.After researching many blogs on the subjects of history, civil war reenactment, art, politics and education, we are excited to share 21st-Century Abe at the Rosenbach with your website, Crossed Sabers.The 21st-Century Abe blog is located at the following URL: http://www.21stcenturyabe.org Plus there are great supplementary Abe media sites like:Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/21stCenturyAbeBebo: http://www.bebo.com/21stCenturyAbeMySpace: http://www.myspace.com/21stcenturyabeFacebook:http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1586996051&ref=profile&pub=2309869772 Let us know what you think about it! If you like it, pass it along and tell a friend, or even post about it on your blog.Thanks for your time—we hope to hear from you on our blog and website, and if you’re in the Philly area, we hope to see you at the Rosenbach’s festivities!Sincerely,AlexisAlexis LerroProduction Manager and Research CoordinatorLime Projectsabe21@limeprojects.com

Eric,Sorry that was misleading. It wasn’t involuntary, but a voluntary two year recall from retirement. Same job, better pay and benefits. And since a bigger house (with room for ALL of my books!) is in the offing and the economy’s in the tank, it seemed prudent.